


Tastes of Life

by InvisibleJune



Series: Bent Feathers [1]
Category: Fae Tales - not_poignant
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Aromantic, Bird Shifters, Blood, Cuts, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Fantasy, Gen, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Queer Character, Self Confidence Issues, explicit depiction of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-01 23:05:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16774729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvisibleJune/pseuds/InvisibleJune
Summary: Alala is an Unseelie little owl fae who needs to understand how to live with her heartsong and her appetite, struggling to make a life for herself and to find her place in the world.





	1. Sour Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> **Important things you need to know about this story**  
> 
> 
> These will mostly be one shots (or brief tales with few chapters). There will also be fragments and stories about her parents, and maybe other characters I'll add in the main story, from time to time.
> 
> If you like character centred stories, you'll find it in here! But if you're looking for love ones, this is the wrong place, and I’m not sorry (but please give it a try lmao). Alala is aromantic pansexual, so she will not have a romantic development, and I’ll try to focus on what it means to be aromantic and how arospec people can be affectionate.
> 
> Nsfw will not be an usual thing in here, but it’s possible that there will be nsfw chapters. But don’t worry, I'll tag them and specify it in the notes, so I'll be sure you're not going to read things that could make you uncomfortable!
> 
> Enjoy, and if you need to tell me anything (even questions about aromantisism, or about the original work this fanfic is based on, that I obviously suggest you to read) I'm just one comment away! Or one ask, if you prefer using Tumblr (I'm invisiblejune.tumblr.com).
> 
>  **Music**  
>  There’s a playlist for Bent Feathers on Spotify, you can find it here: https://spoti.fi/2P0FlcE
> 
> **EDITS**  
> 
> 
> I had to change the original name of this work I'm sorry for the confusion! 

And that was it. She was alone, now. Her mother flew right away without turning around and Alala watched her as her white and golden feathers reflected the moonlight. Alala and her father Alcaeus looked at her, without knowing when they’ll see each other again. Then, he gave her daughter a quick kiss on her cheek and a last gaze, before turning into his true form, a beautiful grey little owl, and flying East. He was always the kind of bird that preferred to glide towards the sun, right into the light.

Alala stayed there, in her human form, waiting for them to be as far away as they could be, because she knew that if she transformed right away, she would fly after them, probably after her father, in a second, and she couldn’t do that. Little owls were not supposed to have a family. And if they did, they usually parted ways when their one and only child was an adult. And that day she turned 200 years old, an adult for fae standards.

After looking at the night sky for an hour, Alala decided that maybe she could do what she had planned for the new beginning of her life, for the True Start, like her father used to call it. She walked, too hungry to transform, the bloodlust throbbing in her guts, and not easy to control in her true form. She didn’t really like to walk, or to do anything by feet, but the long leather boots she was wearing, and the fur coat were a comforting and familiar support. 

The Aur Forest was not so far away, and Alala knew a place she could spend the night. There was an old, big, dried redwood tree, with no one left to look after it. When Alala had found it, five years before, she knew that it was hers, like her, there for her to call it her home. She asked some dryads if she could stay in it and use it, even if for brief moments, and nobody complained. Fae didn’t usually like being around her, and she knew it, but Aur Dryads were different. They loved life, they didn’t judge her like every other fae did, and they were fine with her presence provided she didn’t feed upon anyone of them. Alala had visited the Tree a few times after finding it, and now that she didn’t have an actual house anymore, that was the only place she could think as hers.

Apart from the clothes she was wearing, Alala had only one change, a fire striker, some homemade sweets, two notebooks and a handmade pencil. She left the bag on a side of the redwood tree and she looked at the little hearth, where the family of the old tree probably used to tell stories to the little ones, or “saplings” as the dryads used to call them. She imagined the story of that family, she imagined that she could hear the trees talk, and she tried to guess which stories they would tell, and especially what stories her redwood tree knew, and what every mark meant. She knew all the scratches on the bark of her tree by heart and she could picture what had caused every one of them. Maybe a sapling with their little fingers? Or a squirrel passing by? Were they old? Were they new? How deep were they? Was it painful for the tree, when it was alive? 

Alala stared at the redwood, before stroking it and starting to walk round and round. She needed to eat. She needed to sleep. And she absolutely needed to understand what to do next with her life. Little owls were usually happy to have that independence, and the freedom to do whatever they wanted. But Alala’s thinking was different. She wanted a family, she wanted the proximity of her parents, of someone that loved her or someone to love. That kind of love that makes you feel appreciated. She wanted someone that needed her affection, or that could give it to her, someone who could satisfy her heartsong, not a family who left her behind. But it was then, when she was actually alone, that she realized that even that little of affection was so much more than just _nothing_. And this is how she understood that she couldn’t be like that anymore. 

Now she was alone. Alone with her redwood tree, one change of clothes, a fire striker, some homemade sweets, two notebooks and a pencil. She didn’t have friends to go to. Yes, she had had lovers in the past, but… it wasn’t the same. And Alala knew that she needed to understand how to be a little owl. A real little owl. Independent and mostly alone. She wasn’t even supposed to have a home. Little owls wandered all their life and some of them stopped only to have one chick. They never used the power that all the fae had to build a house. And Alala hadn’t told her parents that she had found a tree, that she had slept in there, and that she would use it when they would leave her behind, because they would have disagreed, and they would have probably asked the dryads in there not to let her enter the Aur Forest, only to keep her away. They wouldn’t burn it only because they had an enormous respect for everything that lived, because the Aur Forest was special for everyone who wanted to have all the knowledge in the world, and little owls normally had knowledge as a primary appetite. 

Alala stopped walking, and lied down, feeling the wood only with her hands and one cheek, thinking about the second thing that made her different from her parents and most of the Unseelie little owl fae. Her appetite was not the primary one. She didn’t feed upon knowledge, and she didn’t like to be different. And she hated to be born a little owl, knowing that this meant that every fae would fear her only for what she was: little owl’s screech could paralyze every living thing that heard it or felt the air waves of it. And if they had the second kind of appetite, it could be so dangerous that every fae tried to avoid a little owl when they saw one. And Alala hated her nature because this mistrust meant that no one would ever approach her, fearing her and her appetite. And that is partially why Alala chose to stop the growth of her human form when she was 14 years old, so people would trust her a little more, so they wouldn’t beware her presence feeling protective towards her, and they wouldn’t notice her true nature.

Eventually, Alala started to fall asleep. All those thoughts made her exhausted, draining every remnant of energy that she had left. She didn’t feel the cold air that blew through the entrance of the redwood tree, but she wished she could have lit a fire in the hearth and feel the warmth of it, and imagine that she had what she wanted, that she had the family that everyone was supposed to have, except for little owls, that were supposed to have none, and enjoyed the loneliness of their lives.


	2. The Sweet Flavour of Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning tags** : explicit depiction of violence, blood, cuts, death of secondary characters.
> 
> So here we have the second chapter, yey! Hope you'll enjoy it!  
> And thanks to everyone for your kudos, I appreciate your love and support!

When Alala woke up the scent of the forest was intense and humid: it was clear that it had rained while she was sleeping. She wanted to peek out the tree and have a look at the sky, to understand how much time she had slept, but the dizziness made her clumsy, preventing her from standing up. Alala knew exactly what it meant and reached for her bag to look for the sweets. The thiples were delicious, and sugar was the only thing that helped her calm her appetite, but… 

_Father made them…_

They were the last tangible thing she had of her father, of her home. 

_But I can’t let them rot…_

Alala took the first one between two fingers. It smelled of cinnamon, and the minced walnuts were stuck to the honey. She observed the spiral of puff pastry before biting into it, making the dough fall apart on her other hand, that she put deliberately below her mouth. She ate one after another all five thiples and licked her fingers to taste the remnants of honey on her skin. It felt already as a nostalgic scent, and she wished she had somewhere to cook them and remember of her father’s cuisine, and maybe of her mother’s too. 

She stood up and went to look at the sky. It was grey, the clouds covering it entirely, not letting the sun pass through. It was obvious that it wasn’t night-time because there was enough light to see the landscape of the forest. But without being able to look at the sun Alala had no idea of how much time she had spent sleeping.

After a moment of contemplation, Alala realized that the sweets weren’t enough. That her appetite was still there, consuming her from the inside, beating, begging her to _feed_. Alala went back to the centre of the tree, near the cold hearth-tree. She sat down and closed her eyes. She transformed into air with a whirlwind, sweeping away leaves and dust on the ground. Alala didn’t wait and turned immediately into her true form, finally showing her little owl appearance after waiting for so long. 

Alala had learned how to teleport when she was still a little owl chick of twenty or thirty years old, since her parents didn’t want her to hunt near their house. It was exhausting, but she liked it, because it meant that she could keep the places she used to feed separate from her everyday life. And she could follow her parents wherever they travelled, even when they didn’t want to bring her along by teleporting her with them.

Teleportation and transformation required a lot of energy, making her appetite even stronger. Her caramel coloured feathers quivered with anticipation, knowing that the hunt was close, her grey beak dried in hunger, her eyes ready to catch trails of possible prays.

In her true form, Alala was no more a thinking being, or at least not in the same way she was in her human form. Everything was brought to the primal sensations of her animal body, to her beastly senses, to the survival instinct that forced her to feed and promised that she would never have anything better, that it didn’t exist anything more satisfying and pleasant than the hunt.

***

She found herself in the middle of a dense forest uninhabited by fae. She didn’t have a hunting territory, because fae would start to evade it, making her feeding more difficult, or worst, they would organize a hunt to kill her. But there were places she liked and where she would return from time to time, but never twice in a row.

It was cold, clouds were white, and the air was humid. She knew that sooner or later it would have snowed, and she needed to find her prey before that moment. For a start, she flew above the top of the trees and, when she approached the forest border, she decreased altitude, hiding amongst leaves and branches. She noticed some abandoned nests and kept their position in mind, knowing that she would need one of them after the hunt. 

Eventually she heard noises. Paying closer attention, she recognised a metallic sound, two horses galloping and some random animals fleeing. They probably were fae hunting and hunters were the best quarry. She could show them that nothing was certain, and that the predator could easily become the prey. Besides, the idea that she could also become prey for them sent a shiver down her mantle and made her nape feathers shake.

She stayed hidden in the crown of a big, but not too tall magnolia. On the land below her, an artic fox passed, running at full speed, fleeing from its hunters. Behind, a medium-sized dog, with short brown hair followed it. Lastly, the little owl saw two horses and their riders approach. They were both common fae. The first one was brawny, with black short hair, and had a long spear in one hand; the second one, slenderer, but tall and broad shouldered, the head shaved, wore knives on her waist. The excitement of the hunt was visible in their eyes, and the little owl could feel the thrill in their spirits, and in her own.

No one noticed her. She calculated the right moment to jump from the tree and attack, gliding in front of the fae, and then flying around them. The horses reared, pulling the reins from the hands of their riders. Before striking, the little owl waited to smell the fear in her preys. They knew that normal little owls didn’t attacked fae, they knew that it was an unusual behaviour, and therefore they knew that it could mean only one thing. The moment they understood what was going to happen to them, was the one she started screeching. The sound was guttural, high and sharp and it spread through the forest, echoing on the barks of the trees and paralyzing every living creature capable of hearing and feeling it. Everything stopped around her, and to someone else it could look like they were frozen in time if it weren’t for the wind blowing through the fronds and the faint movement of their chest as they breathed.

The little owl landed on the head of one of the horses. Her feathers shivered, excitement and arousal seized her. The breathing of the horses was fast, but even. Animals knew that they didn’t need to fear little owls like her. On the other hand, fae were aware of the opposite. Both of their heartbeats speeded up, and their breath fastened as the seconds passed. The little owl opened her wings and flew around them, savouring the moment. Then she flew high in the sky, and finally nosedived and ripped out their throats. Her claws cut their skin as it was soft paper. Dark red blood splattered violently, soiling her feathers, the horses and the land below them. The paralysis didn’t break up, preventing the fae from screaming, crying or doing anything else except for flopping on the side of their horses, their bodies dying, every remnant of strength leaving them. Both fae stayed tied to their saddles, their bodies broken under their own weight, their throats cut open.

After a shiver her whole body felt the lust, shuddering in excitement. She flew away, leaving the scene as it was and noticing that at some point, during the attack, it had started to snow. But she didn’t care about it. She remembered the last place where she had seen a nest and she perched in it, thinking that there was nothing more comforting in the whole world, and wishing that she had the strength to keep hunting, for the pleasure of it, to taste the sweet flavour of death once again, when death itself took away the life of a fae, giving the little owl all their life force, feeding her.

She fell asleep, thinking of the soft taste that pervaded her, flavouring the iron smell of the blood that was still on her feathers, not wanting anything else, while the crown of the tree protected her from the snow that was falling upon it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I promised angst, and you're definitely going to have it in the next one!


	3. A Bitter Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning Tags** : angst (finally! There's no story without it <3)
> 
> I want to thank who's reading this story, leaving kudos or only lurking. You're awesome!

The caramel coloured little owl woke up, not able to recall what had happened. She fluttered her eyelashes and looked around. The evening sunlight illuminated the forest around her. She was on a nest that was probably built by turtle doves and then presumably abandoned in the past months. The faint cold in the air tempted her to keep sleeping in the warmth and the comfort of her feathers. She decided to do it, without thinking of anything more. She was tired, but she felt calm and satisfied. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to enjoy that serenity and closed her eyes and fell sleep, her breathe even and deep.

***

The second time she opened her eyes, she was perfectly aware of what had happened. She stood up on her toes and struggled to open her wings, whose feathers were stuck together because of the blood that had dried on them. The smell was ferrous, pungent and it pleasantly covered her. She shook her wings, until she was sure she could safely fly, and went to the nearest source of water. The wind over her feathers was pleasant and the cold wasn’t annoying. She left the forest and flew over a meadow towards a river, whose flow she heard more and more close. The moon was waning gibbous and the little owl noticed only in that moment that she had slept more days than what she had expected. The moonlight illuminated the land, covered by a thick layer of snow that made everything bright. The sky above her was clear, but in the horizon she could see a pink line of clouds, suggesting that down there it was snowing.

The little owl flew over the river, following it upstream, until she saw some rocks apt to lie on. The river bed wasn’t particularly deep and the incline of the rock was ideal to wash herself without being dragged by the stream. She first dove the beak in, drinking and wetting it to understand the temperature of the water. Then she hopped into the stream, washing her feet and the rest of her body.

She left the river dripping water, her feathers soaked. She shook her whole body to remove the excess water and she reached a close tree, flying with difficulty, her feathers heavy with humidity. Now the wind stung her skin and she felt cold to her bones. She hadn’t chosen the best hunting territory, or at least not the best period to do it in that area, but she didn’t care. The little owl stayed on that branch for a few hours, until the morning sun illuminated the surrounding land, granting it its light and its warmth. She patiently waited until she was sufficiently dry to fly again.

Out of curiosity, she decided to go back to the place where she had fed.

***

She easily found it, her bird instincts guiding her along the way. Meanwhile, the snow had started to melt, making the trees cry tears that reflected the early sunlight.

The horses and their riders weren’t there anymore. The fox and the dog had disappeared too. In return, the proofs of the event were still there, together with some tracks left by fae who had visited the place later. Had they looked for her, during the days and nights she had slept? Or had they quickly distanced themselves, hoping that they would not be the next targets of her bloodlust? But she wasn’t hungry anymore, she was relaxed and only wanted to enjoy the moment. Seeing the scene of her last hunt allowed her to relive the emotions that she had experienced when it happened, while feeding and after, and to recall the sensation of being permeated by the life force of the fae she had killed.

The snow was clearly cleaned in that area, probably because the fae had needed to verify what had happened. Presumably someone had found the two bodies and tried to understand how they had died. The puddles of blood that were formed while the two fae were dying, when the horses were paralyzed and couldn’t flee, were dry but visible. The little owl decided to follow the tracks that the horses left after the paralysis vanished.

She flew following the tracks with a newfound excitement, until she bumped into a big house, that had a front garden and a stable. It was obvious that the house belonged to fae of high status. It didn’t seem like there was anyone inside, so the little owl risked entering from a half-open window. She found herself in a big living room, adorned with couches, paintings on the walls and a fireplace that had been turned off for days. She started flying around, while the sunlight entered horizontally from the eastern side of the house, passing through the glass of the windows. She moved to the rest of the house, where she found rooms with open closets, clothes on the beds and sheets of paper on the floor. In one of the rooms a big painting portraying a family of fae, two of which were the ones that she had killed, awakened her from the peace that had permeated her since the hunt. Clear thoughts started to make their way into her mind and little by little she understood the situation she was in, fully realizing what had happened in that house. She started to wheeze and transformed in her human form.

_They abandoned the house, and it’s my fault. They lost their loved ones and it’s my fault._

She started to feel the weight of her heartsong in her chest. She had taken away something important to that family, and they couldn’t even cry their own dead, running away in fear of being the next to be attacked in their own forest.

_And they ran, frightened by me_

In that moment she hated herself. Not only because she had killed two fae or for inflicting a similar suffering upon their family, but also because the idea of being feared so much made her feel alive and incredibly delighted. And Alala didn’t want it. She didn’t want to be Unseelie and to have to feed her appetite, but at the same time she craved it and didn’t want anything else.

Alala collapsed on her knees, her cheeks were damp, her eyes swollen, her breath gasping. She screamed at the painting. She screamed at herself. She screamed at the sun that invaded the room, exposing her real self, all her fears and desires.

She cried until her tears turned again to screams, and the screams transformed into acute and cutting screeches that echoed through the window glass and in her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, in the next chapter this brief story will end, and I truly hope I'll be able to post it before Christmas. -This week I'm painting the house I'm moving to and I'm moving. And at the end of the next week I'll be flying to London in vacation, so I don't really know if I'll have the time to write and edit it in time.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I'll be posting regularly. One thing I know: the next one will be about hunting and it'll have a lot of angst! (Hooray!)


End file.
